The avenues were not lined with police the way they would have been if the convention had involved visiting diplomats or French senators. But three gray armored trucks, used to carry anti-riot squads, were parked off the traffic circle, and there were police details on each sidewalk of all five approach roads. Gendarmes with slung SMGs guarded the entrance to the school complex. More men patrolled inside.
Bolan and the mobster were stopped before they reached the side street. Where are you going? one of the cops asked.
Number three, Bolan said, jerking his head toward the street. The guttering above the arch is rotted; the tenants complained that it leaks. So the landlord finally decided to have it fixed.
Your papers?
They produced them dog-eared folders that identified them as workmen employed by a local contractor; in Bolans case a residence permit, also, stating that he was an immigrant of German origin. Jean-Paul was good at that kind of detail.
Whats in that case? another cop demanded.
Raoul unzippered the canvas bag. Inside were more paint brushes, a can of thinner, cotton waste, a coil of rope, a plastic bottle of cheap red wine and two ham sandwiches wrapped in cellophane.
The first cop handed back the papers. Go ahead, he said.
Bolan glanced across at the armored vehicles. Whats going on? he asked.
Just routine. A stack of bigwigs meeting in the school over there.
Some people have all the luck, Bolan said. We never got police protection whenIwent to school!
The cops laughed and waved them on.
They walked unhurriedly to the third house in the street. On the inner side of the arch they found a painters scaffold that had been suspended from booms projecting from the roofline above. They stepped into the wooden lift and Bolan checked the hook, shackle and swivel assemblies on the end of each hoisting cable. When he was satisfied he nodded and they began to haul on the ropes that ran over pulleys on the outer ends of the booms. The cradle jerked upward, accompanied by the squeak of the pulley wheels as they revolved.
Braking the cradle below the guttering, they began slapping the anticorrosion paint on a section that stretched from the arch to the corner of the yard.
It was almost midday. White continents of cumulus cloud moved slowly across the blue sky, hiding the sun from time to time. But right now it was hot as hell, and the steep roofs above shut them off from the breeze. Soon Bolan and his companion were dripping with sweat.
Shit, Raoul complained, leaving his brush dipped in the paint can and massaging his right arm. My goddamn shoulder is aching. Why the hell do we have to waste time horsing around in this elevator, anyway?
You know why, Bolan said. The cover has to be perfect.
I dont see why we need two guys. You could handle the whole deal. I cant help you press the goddamn trigger, after all.
Painters work with a mate, Bolan said. Anyway, thats the way J-P wanted it. He figured Id need a good backup man.
In truth it was Bolan himself who had insisted that someone the gang boss trusted should come with him. Raouls report of what he had seen Bolan do was vital.
The mobster was not soothed by the implied compliment. He spit over the side of the cradle. It beats me, he grumbled. I coulda been helpin Smiler work over that creep who owns the cafe in the Old Port. The asshole wont come across with his insurance payment.
You like that kind of work, dont you? Bolan asked, concealing his revulsion.
Sure. Id rather be in the contract line, though. Like with Smiler the other day... An ugly smile cracked open the hoods blue-jowled jaw. Ill never forget the look on Frankie Secondinis face when we told him! We were on this train, see, and I had this length of steel...
Yeah, Bolan said curtly. I heard.
At midday the sun disappeared behind a cloud and a factory whistle sounded in the distance. The convention was due to remain in session for another hour, breaking for lunch at one oclock.
Okay, Bolan said. Were on our way.
He drew on rubber gloves and fished plastic-wrapped packages from beneath the paint in each can. Inside one was a small but powerful pair of Zeiss binoculars which he handed to Raoul. The other contained a dayview Balvar X5 sniperscope, similar to the one Bolan had used in Corsica but without the Triphium IR light source. He placed this in his knee pocket and extended the ladder so that it linked the cradle with the roof.
Followed by Raoul, he climbed to the roof. They were wearing rubber-soled sneakers. Carefully, crouching just below the line of the roof, they circled the block above the courtyard until they came to the modernized sector opposite the archway. From here they looked over a row of lower buildings to the nearest avenue and the school beyond. The sidewalks were crowded now with office workers and clerks from the stores hurrying to lunch.
In the center of the flat roof a rectangular structure eight feet square and ten feet high housed the mechanism at the top of an elevator shaft. Between this and the roof parapet on the side away from the courtyard half a dozen zinc ventilator outlets from the air-conditioning plant projected. Bolan consulted his watch. Three minutes, he said.
Raoul sank gratefully with his back against the elevator housing. The sun was shining again, and the tarmac surface of the roof was softening in the heat.
Bolan stared over the buildings below them to the far side of the avenue, where the near-vertical slopes of the assembly-hall glinted in the bright light.
He looked at the sky. Another bank of clouds was drifting across from the west. Soon the sun would be hidden once more.
Two minutes later he walked to the ventilator nearest the elevator housing. Seizing the conical cap that shielded the opening at the top of the twelve-inch metal tube, he twisted left and right until the cone and its stays loosened.
He lifted off the cap, glanced again at his watch and held his hand out to Raoul. The hood handed him the coil of rope.
One end of it was spliced around an oval eyelet lined with lead. Using this as a sinker, Bolan fed the rope slowly into the ventilation shaft, playing it out until he felt it slacken in his hands and there was a definite tug from far below.
The janitor one of the people on whom Jean-Paul could use a lever had been instructed to wait at the foot of the shaft at precisely twelve-fifteen.
Bolan waited until he felt three tugs on the rope and then began hauling it up again. It was much heavier this time. Carefully and evenly he withdrew the rope until the object tied to it appeared at the top of the vent.
The Executioner held the Husqvarna 561 in his hands.
He untied the rope and left it coiled by the shaft, then took the scope from his pocket and fitted it to the gun. Crouching low now, he moved to the corner where the parapet ran into deep shadow cast by a multiple stack of chimneys above the next-door building.
Kneeling behind the parapet, he rested his elbows on the coping and raised the butt of the rifle to his shoulder.
The school was due south of them, and the sun was almost directly above the assembly halls serrated roof. The north-facing glass, four floors below Bolans vantage point, was in shadow, but the glare from the sky allowed him to see through.
Bolan waited until the fringe of the approaching cloud bank passed across the sun.
At once, through the scopes magnifying lens, he was able to see through and into the hall.
He saw a quarter of a circle of tiered seats crammed with people around and above a high platform at the far end of the huge room. On the platform, eight men and a woman sat behind a long table, each with a microphone positioned nearby.
Three places away from the chairman sat Telder. He was busy scribbling on a pad in front of him. Some refraction in the roof glass was making it hard to define his outline. Bolan moved along the balustrade until he could sight the platform through a different panel in the roof.